The Washington summit will momentarily eclipse the context [of the Occupation] by the staging of a false media, diplomatic, and protocolar symmetry. Israeli and Palestinian leaders are not equal partners, but a boss and an employee in a relationship of discretionary dependency.

To go to Washington, Mahmoud Abbas had to obtain the permission of the Israeli army to leave Ramallah, cross various checkpoints and take a plane. His political, economic and physical survival is entirely in the hands of the Israeli government and thus depends entirely on his ability of not altogether displeasing Israel. This image is hardly admissible: for Israeli leaders, by their denial of being labelled as oppressors; for Palestinian leaders, because of their denial or refusal to admit their failures and powerlessness after of an exhausted national struggle.

It's pretty much all I have to say (along with the post below) about the start of those Washington talks, really.